Cobalt Video
Cobalt Video Ltd. is a Craftian designer and manufacturer of graphics processing units (GPUs), founded in May 8, 2061. They create entry level, mid range and high end GPUs for the personal computer market. History Cobalt was created as a joint effort by Chun-Tuk Yang, Simuel Ty, and Randle Forrester, with Yang as president and CEO of the company. In 2063, Cobalt released their first product, the 3DFX series of GPUs, competing directly with Quantum's 40 series; the 3DFX 975 going head-to-head with the Quantum 49a. This would be the start of a long rivalry between the two companies. Cobalt unveiled their GPro and GFlow series in 2071, as a response to Quantum's new Mach 500. While the GFlow was targeted at general consumers, the GPro was aimed at workstation PCs, a market that Quantum was not active in. This led to Cobalt gaining a large portion of the market share by 2073, forcing Quantum to respond with their VR initiative one year later. Cobalt continues to use the GPro and GFlow branding to this day. Products 3DFX (2063 - 2073) 3DFX x00 series 3DFX x10 series 3DFX x20 series 3DFX x30 series The release of the x30 series was severely delayed due to manufacturing issues with a silicon supplier. This led Cobalt to release a smaller lineup in an attempt to hold out for the upcoming "Fable" GPUs. Because of this, Cobalt suffered a heavy market share loss to Quantum's new MACH series GPUs, especially in the mobile sector. 3DFX x40 series Delays to the x30 series flowed on to the x40 series, which also stifled Cobalt's plans to introduce a dedicated mobile lineup. Thus, the mobile market was conceded to Quantum until much later. 3DFX x50 series Cobalt reshifted their pricing model with the x50 series to better focus on the budget market, distinguishing themselves from Quantum, who priced towards the high-end market. 3DFX x60 series With the release of their GPro series, Cobalt began cutting down on their 3DFX range. It was correctly speculated that this would lead to the discontinuation of the entire lineup in the near future. Along with Quantum, Cobalt conformed to the UTS-157 standard by releasing officially tested benchmark numbers for all of their cards. 3DFX x70 series In 2072, Quantum updated the 3DFX series for the final time. There was controversy over the 3DFX 970's specified 4 GB memory, which had only 3.5 GB running at full speed. The other 0.5 GB operated at a slower frequency, which led to some slower performance during strenous use. * 512 MB runs at a reduced speed. GPro (2071 - present) GPro 1000 series In an attempt to increase market share over Quantum by targeting a neglected sector, Cobalt released the GPro series in 2071. This was hugely successful, leading Cobalt to introduce a consumer GFlow series as well. Unlike GPUs intended for use in games, the GPro series is aimed at workstations, and uses the UTS-158 benchmark standard instead, which is tailored to professional graphics. GPro 2000 series The GPro 2000 series was unveiled to much anticipation by Cobalt, in January 2073. GPro 3000 series With the release of the 3000 series in late 2073, Cobalt tweaked the branding to split the W line into W and X lines. The 3000 series was refreshed in late 2074 due to delays with the 4000 series. GPro 4000 series Because of major production delays with the new manufacturing process used, the 4000 series was pushed back to mid 2075. The embedding technology seen in the X400 series was also transferred to the 4000 series. GPro 5000 series The GPro 5000 series released with the GFlow X500 series in March, 2076. GFlow (2072 - present) GFlow X100 series Cobalt unveiled the GFlow series of GPUs in an attempt to capitalise off of the GPro's success. This succeeded, with a market share gain of 18.6% over Quantum in the following 6 months. GFlow X200 series Cobalt surprised the industry in February 2074, where it unveiled its patented EXGM ('EX'press 'G'raphics 'M'emory), instead of the anticipated GGER3, in the X9 290. The increased performance boost from EXGM rectified Cobalt's lack of performance power compared to Quantum, and thus led to another 13.6% gain in market share over the latter. On January 11, 2073, the tenth anniversary of the original 3DFX 970, Cobalt introduced the FX 295, a dual GPU solution for extreme enthusiast computing. GFlow X300 series With the X300 series, Cobalt expanded EXGM in an effort to make it mainstream. GFlow X400 series Before the release of the X400 series, Cobalt announced embedded GPUs that shrunk down desktop-class performance into a mobile form factor while retaining most of the performance. MXGM ('M'obile e'X'''press '''G'raphics 'M'emory) was also introduced by Quantum and applied to its newest mobile lineup. EXGM2 was also used to refresh the high end offerings. GFlow X500 series The GFlow X500 series was released in early 2076 with a focus on cost efficiency, namely bringing VR capable cards to the masses. Additionally, embedded "e" series cards have achieved the full clock speed of the desktop cards they were based on.